March already?!?!

hey

so February...yeah.  that went by fast!  anyone else?

This week also went by pretty fast.  It's kinda hard to believe that I'm actually sitting in this library again already (with some little kid sucking on a cell phone and staring at me...why is it that little kids can just make eye contact with no shame whatsoever?  It's alright...I'm staring straight back in between sentences.  If you can't beat 'em, join 'em!).  But here I am and suddenly I find myself dreadfully unprepared to recount my week to the very beings that I love most in this entire world.  What did we do this week?  I'm whispering to my companion but she's just staring at an e'mail from her brother and asking me, with a bit of a blue glow in her eye from the computer screen, "I dunno... hey, what does 'dropping the L-bomb' mean?  Is that a utah saying?"  So I guess her brother is in love with his girlfriend, which is a real shame, because she was supposed to line me up with him once we got home...  But i'm not thinking about that.

There must have been something that we did between this jaunt on the good old e-mail account and the last.  let me see...

oh yeah.  missionary work!

We had three less actives that we worked with come to church this week!  That was exciting for us.  One is hermano Fernando Torres whom we had never met before wednesday but he came to a church tour we had set up with him and it was incredible!  We stopped in the chapel and just sat silently for about a full minute then asked him how he felt and he said.  Different.  Sooooo different.  When we finished, we took him to the relief society room and talked about the day he was baptized.  He was really intense.  He kept staring directly in between both of us which kinda weirded us out, but that made it all the more dramatic when he would suddenly look one of us in the eyes! haha crazy.  But I love seeing these hardened, dirt-under-the-fingernail, mexican men who suddenly wax incredibly poetic as they talk about God.  It is so...poignant.  I think  it's the contrast that makes it so great.  But he told us about the first time he met missionaries, and I think it's worth recounting:

He was living in Chicago and he said he was "real bad"...like, he would wake up not knowing if he was going to be killed that day, or if he was going to kill someone else.  That's how dangerous things were.  But he said that one afternoon he saw two young men in white shirts and ties ride by on their bikes right through what he called the "field of battle" like it was nothing.  He said he literally felt their peace as they rode by.  And he wanted that.  He didn't even know who they were, but he remembered that feeling of tranquility and when they knocked on his door, he accepted them in.  That is cool.

So it was good to see him in a church again.  When we started the tour he asked, "how did you know I had strayed?"  And he promised that he is back to stay.  I think he's right.

The other man we had in church is named Eduardo Sanchez and he rode his bike for an hour to get there.  'nuff said.

And the final guy we got in church is our man Marvin Ocon Roque.  Mom and dad, hermana cannon might have talked about him.  He is one of her converts and he lives in a school bus.  No joke.  But we finally got him back in the church after a few months of not being able to find him and that was a miracle in and of itself.

Other than that, if anyone has an investigator pool hiding in their garage or something, we'd love to find one.  We've knocked a lot...A LOT...of doors this week.  Gotta love it though.   Tracting makes for some crazy experiences.  We met a man named francisco who had no fingers on his left hand but still managed to hold on to a taco and chew on that as he slammed us for being LDS.  hahaha that takes talent.  We had a prayer with a family who was waiting for their son to come home from work and worried if something had happened to him because he was several hours late.  We had crackers and a cheeseball with a woman named Rebecca (that was weird) who is probably the most christlike person I know and the only thing wrong with her is that she is english.  She has been in and out of jail and now she's working on getting her sister to pray.  She actually understood the whole idea of a need for authority and she's going to read the book of mormon and get baptized once she gets her answer!  that was a good afternoon.  We met another english family - mom, dad, and two kids, who just opened a framing shop and it's doing great.  We walked in thinking that the mom was there last night at our appointment and when I found out she wasn't I was about to sit down so I guess I kinda blushed (like I always do...) and the girl was like, "it sorta looks like you're blushing," which of course just made me flame crimson.  then I looked like a huge dummy as I'm trying to explain about our rules and get out of the house asap.  hahaha some things never change.

In fact, I had another awkward blushing moment this week besides that one.  We had a wedding in our ward and the ward members signed up on our food calender saying we could come eat at the reception.  so there we were, four missionaries, at a wedding.  soooo not comfortable for us.  But it was kinda fun I guess.  We were sitting with two recent converts of ours who are girls our age so that's what made it work better than the last wedding we were at which I hope to just erase from all memory. haha.  But one of the girls (named yaneth) said to me, "I want to line you up with Polo (her brother) once you're done with your mission."  To which I turned a nice pink and then she said "sorry, I think I made you blush." and I said "no, haha..uh...it's okay..." and turned that same (now familiar) crimson shade that I inherited from my mother.  WHY DO I DO THAT?  we'll never know.  So the good news is, I haven't lost that.  haha.

Anyways, I'm kinda just rambling now.  Oh sarah, for the record, Rindfleisch is pronounced Rhine - flesh.  Hermana Gibson and I think it is "incredibly ironic" (name that movie!) that we are here in Texas with Pres. Moldenhauer, and elder Rindfeisch, and elder Orndorff, and Elder Doerfler, and elder Hugentobler, while her brother is in the MTC waiting to go to Germany!  God has a sense of humor. 

Alright.  I love you all and I wish you the best of first weeks of march.

love

Becca